Murder at the Lanterne Rouge

“Topics relating to our presentation,” Jean-Luc continued. “We’re on the cusp of discoveries in fiber optics. But of course, no detailed specifics. We’re sharing the current trends with the participants.” His phone vibrated. He glanced and ignored it. “It’s like a knife in my heart. I can’t believe Pascal would have taken the reports from my office. I don’t want to believe it. But if I’d met him Friday, defused the situation, convinced him to own up or …” Pause. “But I’m projecting.”

Had Pascal stolen reports? She needed to think about this new spin.

“I’m still not understanding how this links,” she said. “Was he obsessed with the project?”

“A geek, you mean?” Jean-Luc’s tone changed, verging on sarcastic.

Realizing she’d struck a sore point, she shrugged. “I’m quoting your fellow Gadz’Arts, de Voule.”

“We’re all geeks, some of us more obviously than others,” he said. “Fascinated by engineering and the arcane.” He shook his head, almost apologetic now. “No one wanted to date mecs like us in engineering school.”

So he spoke from experience? Had he in his youth resembled Pascal: glasses, wild hair, a distracted and bookish look? If so, he’d changed. Pascal hadn’t.

“Vraiment? You?” She’d ease a smile onto his face. Get him to talk. Reveal more about Pascal. Learn what she didn’t know, why he suggested Pascal stole. “More like a catch, I’d say.”

He grinned. “And you?”

“Me?” He turned the tables in a neat switch.

“So you’re taken, Aimee?”

By a man married to a job he couldn’t talk about? Who might never have a weekend free but asked her to go with him to Martinique?

“Relationships? I don’t get them.” She shrugged.

“But I can tell,” he said. “Alors, give me credit for trying.”

He hadn’t tried very hard. And his being department head of a conglomerate, not bad boy enough for her.

“Weren’t de Voule and Pascal outsiders?” Aimee asked, persisting. “De Voule said you and Pascal butted heads. That you used him. How do you explain that?”

“Crapaud! You believe de Voule? Consider the source.” Jean-Luc downed his wine. “Alors, de Voule inherited his father’s company. Lucky for him. A mediocre engineer, a passable technician who paid lip service to our traditions to bolster his credentials. His firm’s in financial trouble. Their ministry project defunded. Yet he thinks himself too good for a Gadz’Arts, can you imagine?”

“Yet Pascal didn’t buy into any of it, did he?”

“We knew where we stood with him.”

She poured more wine. The bottle was almost empty. “Did you use Pascal?”

“Moi? The other way around. I felt sorry for Pascal. These flashes of brilliance he had, with no discipline to follow through. His scattershot approach. We were so different from each other, but I understood him. His obsessive tendencies from a solitary childhood. Like my own. Now I hate to think he repaid me by …”

“Stealing reports? Is that what you’re implying?”

“I hope to God not.” He glanced again at his cell phone, worried. For a moment vulnerable. “Another work crisis.”

Overwhelmed by responsibility. She could relate to that.

“Forgive me, but I need to go over tomorrow’s project.” He gathered his overcoat from the rack. A camel-hair coat. It was one of several similar coats on the rack, but her stomach went cold. And she remembered the man darting in front of the car. The thread in her fingernail after the attack. “That’s your coat?” Had it been him? Her throat caught.

He snorted in disgust. “Can you believe that?” He pointed to a grease stain. “A brand new coat—I only just bought it this afternoon. Dirty. Teaches me not to shop the sales again.”

“Today?” A tingle in her ankles rose up her legs.

“Before my seminar. A new coat, to make a good impression. And look.” He shrugged for a moment like a little boy.

Relief flooded her. It couldn’t have been him.

“Look, if my reports surface in Samour’s files, will you tell me? Keep it between us? No need to implicate Pascal now.”

Not to mention keeping his company ignorant of this. But she understood.

Jean-Luc kissed her on both cheeks. Lingering kisses, and then he’d gone. She wanted him to be wrong about Pascal. Very wrong.

Sunday, 7 P.M.

AIMEE STOOD AT Cafe des Puys, running her chipped rouge-noir pinkie over the zinc counter. What she wouldn’t give for that cigarette in her bag.

One drag. That’s all.

Anxiety settled over her mind as she wondered about the DST’s agenda, their claim to Pascal, de Voule’s firm’s financial trouble, Jean-Luc’s intimation that Pascal stole his fiber-optics report. They each had different reasons for lying. Who to believe?

Just as she was about to reach for the pack the blonde had given her, the waiter slid an espresso in front of her. So instead, she took sugar cubes from the bowl. No chocolate on the demitasse saucer this time. No instructions either.

“Monsieur, un chocolat?”

“All out,” he said, without looking up.

Alors, she’d appeared as instructed. Done her part. Foolish to think the DST could lead to her mother. Secret meetings, games, all smoke and mirrors. She’d promised Mademoiselle Samoukashian she’d find Pascal’s murderer. But she still hadn’t connected the pieces, or found out who murdered him. Or why.

Tired, she downed the espresso, slapped five francs on the counter. The next time the DST made contact, she’d tell them where to go. About to leave, she glanced up. In the cafe mirror her gaze caught that of the man sitting in the back.

Sacault. Same brown suit. A matching brown wool muffler. Color coordinated as usual. She sat down across from him. “Glad you’re here. Makes it easy to say adieu.”

“Don’t you have news for me?”

She set down the tiny GPS tracker she’d found under her scooter’s headlamp. “Your surveillance techniques don’t impress or protect me. Nor do your old recycled surveillance reports,” she said. “After meeting the blonde last night, I was attacked. Consider me done.”

Sacault slid a gift-wrapped box with a blue bow across the marble-topped table. “Open it.”

Presents, a three-star resto tomorrow … bizarre goings-on. “But it’s not my birthday.”

“Pretend.”

“You’re good at that.” She stared at him. “Like that supposed five-year-old surveillance report on my mother. Posted on a website that disappeared before I could track it. Or how you altered the date.” She shook her head, shoved the gift back at him. “Quit gaming me.”

“You’ll like this. Guaranteed.”

Reluctant yet intrigued, she untied the bow, tore the paper, opened the small box. A small mirrored ball with pink strands shooting out of it. Sacault reached and hit a button. The strands lit up, glowing dark pink at the tips.

“A Barbie gift. How thoughtful.”

“Give me the customary thank-you bises.”

Surprised, she felt Sacault’s cheek near hers. She pecked both of his cheeks. “Look familiar?” he whispered. “Samour worked on micro fiber optics. Much smaller than these.”